]]>By: kamikazehttp://www.linuxgames.com/archives/5357/comment-page-1#comment-9366
Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000#comment-9366Nope. I’d have probably at least considered using that instead of making my own, if I’d been able to find one with a scripting language and not point-and-drool construction.

But making Linux-only games is not a great idea if you can instead make a game that works on multiple platforms. Java is one way to do that. Pygame is another. C/C++ and SDL work, if and only if you have all those platforms to compile it on.

I really like having games on my Linux box – I do everything with Linux. But I also really don’t like dictating platform to my users. I’m frustrated whenever I see a neat game that says “Requires Windows”, leaving me out in the cold just because I want to use a better OS. Why would I want to make my players feel that bad? I want them to have fun playing my games, and I’m under no delusion that my games, no matter how great they are, will ever make people switch platforms. It ain’t gonna happen.

And really, what would being native give you? You need to install Java 1.2+ if you don’t have it, and then it’s all but indistinguishable from a native game. I can only think of two Java-mandated artifacts in the engine currently.